Ireland

The civil servants’ strike, the first national civil servants strike in twenty years, was rock solid. Now the task for Trade Unionists and Socialists in Ireland must be to build for March 30th; let’s turn it into a one-day general strike!

The ICTU has called for a national strike day on March 30th because the employers in both the public and private sectors are reneging on the national wage agreement. The Irish Trade Union leaders are clearly under enormous pressure and have no doubt also been emboldened by the mood of the workers and the show of force on Saturday.

On Saturday a huge demonstration of 200,000 marched through the streets of Dublin, protesting over unemployment and job cuts. The development of the past period has enormously strengthened the Irish working class and now in the face of crisis it is flexing its muscles.

As the capitalist crisis continues to ravage the once mighty ‘celtic tiger’ the Irish government has stumbled across a sure fire method to stimulate economic growth and raise living standards; cut the wages of the lowest paid workers!

The workers at Waterford Crystal have occupied the factory in response to the threat of making 480 workers redundant. They have the full backing of working people locally. This struggle is an indication of the growing militant mood of Irish workers.

We reproduce willingly this article that first appeared on the éirígí website. Faced with the current financial meltdown the author poses the choice bluntly: “Every person in Ireland has a choice to make. Do they support a ‘free’ market or do they support a free people? And if they choose a free people they need to make one more choice – to become politically active and join the struggle for a free, socialist Ireland.”

Ireland has been hit hard by the credit crunch. The country has gone from one of the highest rates of growth to bust. The government is being forced to intervene with guarantees, but as could be expected they are aimed at sustaining the rich not the ordinary working people.

We publish the recent editorial of The Plough, which stresses the need to adopt the Marxist method and approach within the Irish republican movement, to raise the class issues at the same time as struggling for a solution to the national question, one being inextricably linked to the other.